Electrical connectors or terminal blocks for electrically connecting and retaining two or more electrical wires or insulated conductors have, in recent embodiments, relied on slotted blades of an electrically conductive material which, engage the wires within the blade slots and both short the wires together and lock the wires within the device.
Such devices frequently require the use of a tool, either a conventional tool such as a screwdriver or a specialty tool, to engage the wires within the blade slots to strip the insulation and engage the conductors therein.
The known connectors of this type are basically intended to accommodate, in an optimum manner, wires of the same diameter or gauge with the blade slot displacing or stripping the insulation and making positive and nondestructive contact with the conductors.
The patent to W. F. Pawl, U.S. Pat. No. 3,183,472, discloses wires of different diameters engaged within a single slot. This requires a positive compressing and deforming of the larger diameter conductor. While such a compression of the conductor avoids excessively cutting or notching the larger conductor itself, and thus weakening the conductor, to appropriately compress the conductor would require that the connector plate be of a substantial thickness, and that substantial force, utilizing a specialty tool, is necessary to properly strip and seat the conductors.